BerlinRocks
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it's not really Olivier Rizzo's related and this is pretty old...
but i saw some names (Panos, Nicola....) we like in this article and as i don't wanna loose it and want to share it ...
here it is...
...
but i saw some names (Panos, Nicola....) we like in this article and as i don't wanna loose it and want to share it ...
here it is...
New wave
Independent, The (London), Sep 20, 2003 by Jo Ann Furniss
MENSWEAR. The word used to strike fear - or at least apathy - into the hearts of those devotees of its sluttish big sister, womenswear. But while many once scoffed at the world of men's fashion, with their preconceived notions of acres of grey flannel, dress-down Fridays, trite-homoerotic and hackneyed, secret-agent masturbatory fantasies, the question is, who's laughing now? Womenswear is currently a victim of widespread economic decline, supposedly bolstered by play-safe fashion advertising and celebrity endorsements. Take Christina Aguilera as the upcoming Versace campaign "icon". Despite the car- crash charm, this is a style arbiter who adopted the guise of a black- and-white minstrel in drag for her latest video. This, coupled with a certain aesthetic inertia, pages of mind-numbing "must-haves" and abundant, hollow photographic images in the majority of women's fashion-and-style magazines, seems to suggest that women's fashion is in something of a trough.
On the other hand, menswear has hit a decided peak. Today is an unprecedented period for men's fashion both in terms of design and the all-important image-making process - and, incidentally, achieved without a lumpen celebrity in sight. No longer trailing in the wake of its sister discipline, men's fashion is leading the way. The strength of the autumn/winter collections is just one of the more recent indicators of its new pull; from the big labels' revitalisation, seen particularly at Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton, to the influx over the past year of some of the more forward- thinking womenswear designers such as Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga, Hussein Chalayan, Veronique Branquinho and Viktor & Rolf. And that's not to mention a younger design generation, many of whom have their roots in menswear. These include Thomas Englehart, Peter Jensen, Kim Jones and Siv Stoldal.
Yet perhaps most interesting of all is the emergence of a new wave of photographers and stylists over the past few years, centred largely around the masculine world. In a fashion culture that consumes image far more readily than it purchases sensible trousers, the influence of this new wave - that has at its forefront the photographers Willy Vanderperre and Alasdair McLellan, the stylists Olivier Rizzo, Panos Yiapanis and Nicola Formichetti and the make-up artist Peter Philips - cannot be underestimated. And that's to name but a few of the image makers who, each in their individual way, are currently all engaged with creating distinct worlds for men through the fashion photograph. If, in recent times, menswear has attained that magic mix of creativity, coolness and, of course, commercial clout, this new generation is no insignificant part of it.
Crucially, this would not have been possible without the example set by a few key people who pursued a new agenda for men's fashion from the mid- 1990s onwards. In design, Hedi Slimane and Martin Margiela have been tremendously influential, but for some time it was Raf Simons who was out on his own with his iconoclastic construction of a new world for men. Inspired by Helmut Lang - the definitive design exemplar, who has also stayed true to his ground-breaking roots - he took the idea of a distinct kind of youthful, masculine alienation to a new level. As with Simons, the stylist Alistair Mackie was an early pursuer of this new men's fashion agenda and continues it with his work as fashion director of Another Magazine - a publication aimed at men and women - where he collaborates with and commissions many of the new generation of photographers and stylists. "At the beginning I had very much a womenswear view that I wanted to apply to menswear," he explains. "Because it was so dull at that point, I felt it should have the same direction and eccentricities that womenswear was capable of. Menswear had done it at times, particularly with the grunge stylists in the early 1990s and I suppose what I was doing with boys, alongside what Katy England and Jane How were doing with girls, was pursuing something of that aesthetic, sort of `neo-grunge'. It was what you would wear yourself in a fantastic scenario, or just the fact of pure fashion on men. When Raf Simons launched his first collection, then all of a sudden menswear had something of its own that was new. There was a revolution in the ways boys looked."
Mackie's depiction of a darkly poetic place for boys and Simons' cold, male, alien universe, as both would freely admit, is indebted to two important members of that grunge generation: the photographer David Sims and the stylist Melanie Ward. As Mackie explains: "I wanted to see something that was fantastical, strange and unusual, that a man could be part of, which wasn't about the way to wear a suit or `cool casual'. I have to say it was Melanie Ward who was the first one to do it for me - you have to have her at the top of the tree. She broke the mould and we built on that. In her pictures with David Sims, there was something magical and beautiful, it wasn't just reality plonked in front of you like some of the other fashion images from that time. It was a strange world, but reality was within it, which made that strange world possible. It made you think you could be involved in fashion."
The idea of the fashion fantasy world made entirely possible is key to the new wave of photographers and stylists. f In many ways they are the true inheritors of that grunge generation, intent on injecting some humanity back into fashion spreads as opposed to merely compiling glamorous shopping lists. This can be chiefly seen in their attitudes towards models, who are not just another accessory to be consumed on the page, but are people in their own right with a creative input into the image, who often sum up a notion of modern masculinity. Witness the importance of Robbie Snelders - who, as well as appearing in photographs, is also first assistant to Raf Simons - for many in the new wave. Yet what is perhaps most interesting of all, particularly in more recent work, is the synthesis of that early- 1990s reality, with a lyrical, older, fashion fantasy. Out of this integration a completely original viewpoint is emerging for men, which contains those contradictions and says something about the times.
Now, unashamed, almost shockingly conventional beauty sits alongside the more customary, brutal aspects of fashion images; elegance has been mixed with rebelliousness and a pop sensibility has been fused with the political. Aesthetically, the photography of Bruce Weber and the styling of Ray Petri holds equal sway with the influence of the images of Corrine Day. The clothes of Ralph Lauren sit easily with those of Helmut Lang and Hedi Slimane. There are none of the old cliches about the underground and mainstream - the supposedly "young and edgy" are quite at home within the pages of L'uomo Vogue - and none of the ludicrous debates as to what might constitute a "gay" or "straight" fashion image. Different creative relationships are also flourishing between established and nascent fashion generations, with heavyweight stylists and photographers such as Joe McKenna, Simon Foxton, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin gladly working with lesser-known names. Essentially, there is real integrity and creativity in men's fashion photography and styling at the moment.
This month sees the launch of the 10th anniversary issue of Arena Homme+. Along with L'uomo Vogue, Homme+ is the leading men's fashion magazine worldwide. While women's fashion magazines in Britain have never achieved world-leader status, perhaps surprisingly, one men's publication has been quietly getting on with it for 10 years. Needless to say, Homme+ has not been slow to realise the significance of the new wave of photographers and stylists.
"There has not really been any A-list talent broken through in womenswear fashion photography for the last five years," says the magazine's editor and director Ashley Heath. "With the possible exception of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, there has been nobody who has made the breakthrough to shoot for Italian or American Vogue and do the big campaigns. It's the same photographers that were huge in 1995 and it looks like they will still be big in 2005. One of the things we stand for at Homme+, as well as being willing and able to use those big photographers and stylists, is also the idea of breaking new talent and introducing new names: we have wanted to move things forward." The anniversary issue is a reflection of that new stable of talent, with retrospective showing-off made into a separate, hefty supplement. "The magazine has always declared itself to be a post-Buffalo, post-grunge publication," states Heath. "In menswear, there's not so much of a tendency to junk significant periods in fashion, or blindly reference them as there is in womenswear and I think that's why the current generation have had a solid foundation to work on. Those same moments in womenswear often appear like shifting sands, but in menswear they become building blocks for something new."
Fortunately for womenswear, and the bored-out-of-its-mind female readership of fashion magazines, the new crop of stylists and photographers have already made inroads into the big-girl's world. And, in true "must-have- a-trend" women's fashion-mag style, they look set to become "the next big thing".
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and i just got this issue today,but it's in bad condition,so 'm considering tearing it up and re-scaning the eds.....if i got a scanner
still same source,here are 10 pics
